How to hire a website designer
for a small business (2026)
Post the job with the platform you already pay for named in the first line, and expect to pay around the national median of $104,000 a year for a web and digital interface designer, or $92,650 for a web developer, before benefits. Allying does this job off the posting you already wrote, priced off the salary in it (a posting at the 25th percentile, $73,290, is about $1,832 a month), and the first week of the work is done and waiting on a private page before anyone asks you for a call.
Last updated
What a website designer is paid in 2026
Web and Digital Interface Designers (SOC 15-1255), 113,330 employed in the United States, self-employed excluded.
| Percentile | 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A year | $53,750 | $73,290 | $104,000 | $158,820 | $201,550 |
| An hour | $25.84 | $35.24 | $50.00 | $76.36 | $96.90 |
Postings titled "WordPress developer" or "Shopify developer" fall under Web Developers (SOC 15-1254), where O*NET lists WordPress Developer as a title: median $92,650, with the middle half between $64,230 and $126,230.
The six largest metros by employment in this occupation, with the median for designers in each: New York $119,190; Seattle $133,760; Los Angeles $106,550; San Francisco $163,810; San Jose $201,260; Nashville $63,510.
Data: BLS OEWS May 2025 (released 2026-05-15); O*NET 31.0 (August 2026). Last updated 2026-09-17.
What does a website designer actually do day to day?
The Department of Labor's own list for this occupation, in plain words: fix the problems that testing and customers turn up; design, build and keep up the site with the platform's own tools; write the small pieces of code a page needs; test the site after every change; work with developers when a job is bigger than a page; help decide how the site sells; draw new page designs and change them on feedback; keep up with how the web is changing; answer customer emails; make working models before building; ask customers what they need; and make the day-to-day updates.
For a shop, a clinic or a contractor, that comes down to four things. Keep every fact on the site true: hours, prices, menu, staff, locations. Build the page each launch, season or opening needs, before the date. Keep forms and bookings landing where you can see them. Make the site fast on a phone, because that is where your customers open it.
What should you look for?
Someone who builds on the host you already have (Shopify, Squarespace, Webflow, WordPress, Framer) rather than moving you to theirs. Someone who stages a change where you can look at it before it goes live, and can show you a rollback. Someone who redirects every old address they change, measures speed and accessibility with the same public tools you can run yourself, and asks where the true hours and prices live before typing any.
Be wary of a portfolio with no live addresses, a plan that starts with a rebuild on a new platform, and anyone who wants your personal login instead of an access you can issue and revoke.
How do you write the posting?
Name the platform in the first line. List the pages you know you need this quarter: a menu page, a booking page, a page for the spring opening. Say who owns the facts: the hours come from the front desk, the prices from the POS. Say what you must approve before it goes live (the homepage, any price, any legal page) and what can just be done. Give the salary; the price on this page is a share of it.
Leave out "rockstar", the list of thirty tools, and "SEO" as a throwaway word. If you also want search work, that is a second posting.
What should you ask in the interview?
- "Here is our site on your phone. What would you change first?" A good answer names one specific thing (the booking button is below the fold, the hours differ from Google), not a redesign speech.
- "We are on Squarespace. Do you build inside it or move us?" A good answer builds on what you pay for unless there is a plain reason not to, and explains how a change gets staged, approved and published.
- "What happens to our old links when a page address changes?" A good answer says redirects, a map of every address changed, and a crawl afterwards to prove nothing breaks.
- "How do you check a page is fast, and usable by someone who cannot use a mouse?" A good answer names a public speed tool and an accessibility checker, gives numbers before and after, and tries the page by keyboard.
- "Our holiday hours change next week. Walk me through it." A good answer asks where the true hours live, names every page that carries them, makes the change, and reads the live page back to you the same hour.
How much does a website designer cost a small business in 2026?
A designer on payroll costs the salary plus what sits on top of it. In June 2026 wages and salaries were 70.0% of what private employers paid per hour worked and benefits the other 30.0%, by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' count (Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, released 2026-09-09, read 2026-09-17). At that split, a designer at the $104,000 median implies about $148,600 a year in total cost, and one at the 25th percentile, $73,290, about $104,700.
A freelancer or agency prices the project instead of the year. One platform vendor's 2026 guide reports freelancers at $75 to $150 an hour, or $2,000 to $8,000 for a five-to-ten-page brochure site, and agencies at $10,000 to $35,000 for a custom small-business site, with WordPress maintenance plans at $50 to $200 a month. Those are the vendor's reported ranges, not ours; your own quotes are the number that counts.
Allying's price for this job is 30% of the salary you post, billed month to month, with a floor of $1,395 a month. A posting at $73,290 is about $1,832 a month; one at the $104,000 median is $2,600. This job's floor only matters on an hourly or part-time posting; the exact price is in the proposal before you decide.
| Option | What it costs | What week one looks like | Who decides, who spends |
|---|---|---|---|
| An employee at the median | $104,000 in salary; about $148,600 a year all in at the 70.0/30.0 split | Access, a site tour, a backlog | You manage them; hosting and apps are on your card |
| A freelancer | $75 to $150 an hour, or $2,000 to $8,000 for a brochure site, per the vendor's guide | A proposal, then a design file | You approve per project; the project has an end date |
| An agency | $10,000 to $35,000 for a custom small-business site, per the same guide | A kickoff and a discovery phase | The agency's project manager; ask who holds the host login |
| Allying | About $1,832 a month on a $73,290 posting; floor $1,395 | A site audit with receipts, a staged homepage, a launch page and the accuracy list, before any call | Nothing goes live without your yes; DNS, billing and hosting are never touched |
What should the first week produce?
Not a mood board. In a good first week you should be able to open an audit of your current site with every broken link, missing image and wrong fact listed with its address and the date it was read; a redesigned homepage staged on a private address, in your brand, from your own photos and words; a landing page for the launch you have already announced; the facts that disagree between your site, your Google profile and your menu, with the corrections drafted; a one-page plan for how the work ships onto your host; and the Friday report you will get, filled with the numbers readable from outside.
If a first week produces a proposal and a design file, you have hired a project, not a job.
When should you not hire a website designer?
When you need one site built once and nothing after: that is a contract with an end date, not a seat. When the work is custom application code, a server-side integration, plugin development or hosting administration: that is a developer. When the posting is really "a marketing manager who also updates the site": hire the manager. And when nobody can say where the true hours and prices live, fix that first, because a designer can only copy what you give them.
How Allying does this job
Allying does the website designer job as written in its playbook: it audits the site you have; builds and keeps pages in your brand from your own logo, fonts and photos, with copy only from your own words and any unsourced fact left as a blank; ships on the host you already pay for through an access you can revoke; keeps hours, prices, menus, staff and locations true from the source you name; stages a page for every launch on your calendar; measures speed and accessibility with public tools; wires and tests forms and bookings; stages every change privately first; redirects every address it changes; and sends a Friday report with counts you can check in your own dashboard.
Week one, before any conversation, on a private page only you can open: a site audit with receipts; a redesigned homepage, staged where only you can see it; one landing page for a launch you have already announced; the accuracy list, with the fixes drafted; how it ships onto your host, and what only you can give; and a weekly report template, filled with the public numbers we could read.
The work is done with AI and overseen by a named specialist who answers for it.
Mae Santos, Allying's co-founder, is the person you talk to; write to hello@allying.com and she answers. The work is reviewed before it reaches you.
What Allying refuses on this job
- Publishing, changing or taking down anything on your live site, theme or domain outside a card or a permission recorded in your agreement. You publish, or approve it on a card.
- Touching DNS, nameservers, the domain, SSL, the hosting plan, billing, payment, tax or shipping settings, app installs, user roles or API keys. You or your host do these; the worker has no tool that reaches them.
- Deleting pages, products, posts, media, redirects, customer records, orders or form submissions. Unpublishing is a card; deleting is yours.
- Stating a fact about your business it cannot source: hours, prices, menu items, staff names, awards, years in business. An unsourced fact is a marked blank you or the source fill.
- Fabricating or reshaping testimonials, reviews, star counts, trust badges or press logos. A real review appears word for word with its source and the customer's permission, supplied by you.
- Generating your product, a dish, a face or a team photo to stand in for the real one. Your photos, or a blank.
Questions owners ask
Do I have to move off Shopify or Squarespace?
No. The job is done on the host you already pay for, in the shape that host uses: an unpublished theme on Shopify, a draft page on WordPress, staged pages on Webflow, files and written steps on Squarespace or Framer.
Who can publish to my live site?
You, until you say otherwise. Every change is staged privately first. After your first approved change of a kind (a price update, a holiday-hours change), that kind can go live on its own; a new page, the homepage and anything you cannot undo still ask, and "ask me again" takes it back.
Where do the photos come from?
From you. Your product, your storefront and your team appear only as you photographed them, and a person only with a release on file. Nothing is generated to stand in for them.
What if a price is wrong on the site?
Prices, hours, menus and staff change only from the source you name, and the live page is read back the same hour. A wrong price found live is urgent, and you hear about it that hour.
What happens to my old links?
Every address that changes gets a redirect, listed in a map you can read, so an old ad, a printed card or a Google result still lands somewhere right.
Sources
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 estimates (released 2026-05-15), national and metropolitan workbooks. Read on 2026-09-17.
- O*NET 31.0 Database (August 2026), Web and Digital Interface Designers 15-1255.00 and Web Developers 15-1254.00, task statements and job titles. Read on 2026-09-17.
- O*NET license, CC BY 4.0. Read on 2026-09-17.
- BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (released 2026-09-09): private industry wages and salaries 70.0 percent of employer costs per hour worked, benefits 30.0 percent. Read on 2026-09-17.
- Elementor, How Much Does a Small Business Website Cost? (A 2026 Breakdown), Itamar Haim, updated 2026-06-29 (a platform vendor's guide; ranges reported, not measured by Allying). Read on 2026-09-17.
- Allying playbook, website builder / designer, version 1.2.0. Read on 2026-09-17.